Chris Dixon, founder of Hunch, just wrote the following on his blog. It hit so close to home I felt like I should repost it here. If anyone reads this and knows Chris, please let him know how much I appreciated his words. I feel like a disciple of this philosophy as I’m struggling with this very issue as we speak.

My most useful career experience was about eight years ago when I was trying to break into the world of VC-backed startups. I applied to hundreds of jobs:  low-level VC roles, startups jobs, even to big tech companies.  I got rejected from every single one.  Big companies rejected me outright or gave me a courtesy interview before rejecting me. VCs told me they wanted someone with VC experience.  Startups at the time were laying people off.  The economy was bad (particularly where I was looking – consumer internet) and I had a strange resume (computer programmer, small bootstrapped startups, undergrad and masters studying Philosophy/mathematical logic).

The reason this period was so useful was that it helped me develop a really thick skin.  I came to realize that employers weren’t really rejecting me as a person or on my potential – they were rejecting a resume.  As it became depersonalized, I became bolder in my tactics. I eventually landed a job at Bessemer (thanks to their willingness to take chances and look beyond resumes), which led to getting my first VC-backed startup funded, and things got better from there.

One of the great things about looking for a job is that your “payoff” is almost always a max function (the best of all attempts), not an average. This is also generally true for raising VC financing, doing bizdev partnerships, hiring programmers, finding good advisors/mentors, even blogging and marketing.  I probably got rejected by someone once a day last week alone. In one case a friend who tried to help called me to console me. He seemed surprised when I told him: “no worries – this is a daily occurrence – we’ll just keep trying.”  If you aren’t getting rejected on a daily basis, your goals aren’t ambitious enough.

Like any good entrepreneur, the path I have followed has been generally diverse and at times extremely focused. I began my career in the entertainment industry. Based largely on the inefficiencies I found in that business it became obvious to me that my mission was to take large scale complex problems, reduce them to their most basic components, and build solutions that reduced complexity.

The first problem I tackled was that of digital video editing and compression in the days where CD-ROMS were the content delivery medium of choice. Next, I turned my attention to the challenge of helping companies, large and small, make the transition from the analog economy to the digital economy. In the early days of the Internet it was not obvious how best to use this new communications tool. I found OpticNerve, Inc. for the purpose of providing comprehensive marketing, sales, user interface, and application design/prototype consulting to businesses primarily in the technology sector.

In the mid-1990’s I became very interested in the concepts and challenges of security on the Internet, particularly focusing my attention on the complexities of email. I identified some key security problems within SMTP that ultimately resulted in the development of the Sender Address Verification (SAV), Silverlisting, and other concepts related to the security of email communications. The result of this work culminated with the creation of Sendio, Inc. Sendio’s mission was to “Secure email one inbox at a time.”

The Sendio experience was a wild ride. I took the company from zero employees, zero customers, and zero revenue to 40 employees, 600+ enterprise customers (over 125K protected inboxes), 98% customer retention, and ~$3M in gross annual revenue of which nearly $1.5M was recurring. While at Sendio I raised ~$9M in venture capital, traveled throughout North America working with partners, and spoke with thousands on the topic of Internet security.

For the last 18 months I have directed the majority of my attention towards understanding the compelling synergies between the Internet, social media, and mobile computing. Since my departure from Sendio I found Killer App Factory, Inc. Through KAF I have been speaking, writing, and consulting on social/mobile/Internet convergence and have been developing mobile (iPhone/Android) applications.

I am a creator of things and the companies required to bring them to market. I am a hands-on person with deep, current, and relevant expertise working at all phases of corporate development. I am a sales, marketing, product development and business development person by day, and a software engineer by night.

As I continue my pursuit to find a way to put my years of experience, and the expertise I have accumulated, to it’s best possible use, I have been asked the following question more times than I care to admit…

“Tell me about yourself.”

I am a skilled and successful sales person. I am a technologist, an inventor, a philosopher, an entrepreneur, a musician, a son, a father and a husband. I have published articles, have performed on stages to the applause of thousands. I have created businesses from nothing, and have watched them return to the nothing from which they were created. I am, clearly, a person blessed with many gifts. However, does this really tell you “about” me?

When I think about “me,” I believe I am primarily defined by what I know (or think I know), and, conversely, by my internal voice that is always pushing me to know more. My “superpower,” it turns out, is not all that I know, but a deep internal appreciation for that fact that I know almost nothing.

The following words from Napoleon Hill, published in his book “Think and Grow Rich” (which I am in the process of re-reading) are remarkable for many reason and, in a sort of scary way, are perhaps more relevant today than they were in 1938 when they were first published.

THERE are two kinds of knowledge. One is general, the other is specialized. General knowledge, no matter how great in quantity or variety it may be, is of but little use in the accumulation of money. The faculties of the great universities possess, in the aggregate, practically every form of general knowledge known to civilization. Most of the professors have but little or no money. They specialize on teaching knowledge, but they do not specialize on the organization, or the use of knowledge.

KNOWLEDGE will not attract money, unless it is organized, and intelligently directed, through practical PLANS OF ACTION, to the DEFINITE END of accumulation of money. Lack of understanding of this fact has been the source of confusion to millions of people who falsely believe that “knowledge is power.” It is nothing of the sort! Knowledge is only potential power. It becomes power only when, and if, it is organized into definite plans of action, and directed to a definite end.

This “missing link” in all systems of education known to civilization today, may be found in the failure of educational institutions to teach their students HOW TO ORGANIZE AND USE KNOWLEDGE AFTER THEY ACQUIRE IT.

–Napoleon Hill [1938] – “Think and Grow Rich”

Can you say Google? Microsoft? Bing? WolframAlpha? iPhone? Android?

Who would have thought that Napoleon Hill, back in 1938, was writing the business plan for the current information age.

It’s not what you know. It’s not who you know. It’s how you organize what’s known.

I can’t tell you I completely understand the subtleties of Hill’s words, but I’m sure going to try to figure it out.